LAObserved has a piece on 4 proposed subway stop locations for UCLA at:
http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/07/placing_a_subway_station.php
Don't expect the subway to arrive anytime soon. If anyone wants to compose "Someday, My Train Will Come," here is the music for it:
It seems to me that we are looking at the problem "up side down":
ReplyDeleteIt is a fact that having the Metro coming to UCLA Medical Center will not only help traffic within campus by bringing in/out students, staff and faculty on a daily basis, but it will also substantially increase the patient flow, and the diversity of patients to UCLA medical and dental clinics.
So, let us start from that fact: Metro station at UCLA Medical Center (old CHS, new Hospital, Bldgs 100/200/300 - what have you, but access of patients to UCLA medical facilities) is a MUST.
Also a MUST is another Metro station at Building 500 of the west LA VAMC (the hospital), for the same reason: easy access to our Veterans to health care. A shuttle should then be available for the Vets for easy transport to the Administration building & other units north of Wilshire.
Now: starting from those two "MUSTS", let us think how to bring the Metro lines.
The simplest options, which ought to have been considered already (why it has not is beyond any sensible commuter) is as follows:
1. extend, yes, as planned, the line to the beaches in a East-West horizontal direction, and have, yes, a station serving Westwood - of course: tourists flock LA, and most want to see Westwood!
2. connect that Westwood station in a North-South vertical line from LAX to the Orange line. Have the rails go over the 405 (as is already done in many modern & beautiful US cities, from NY to Chicago).
That connection would run something like LAX-Building 500-(under Wilshire to avoid the cemetery)-UCLA Medical Center-(around Montana to emerge about Sunset -- bus connections to Brentwood & the Pallissades) - over the 405-to a Sepulveda/Ventura station-to a connecting station with the Orange line.
Just imagine, now, in addition to tourists, students, faculty, Vets, etc. coming in/out the Village & the VA daily, just imagine the relief of the 405 traffic by having a connection from the Valley to LAX, to Downtown, to Long Beach...